{"id":294,"date":"2014-07-09T08:27:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T06:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/?p=294"},"modified":"2014-07-09T10:30:30","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T08:30:30","slug":"the-council-and-the-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/2014\/07\/09\/the-council-and-the-community\/","title":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Council and\u00a0the\u00a0Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0new Council election is in\u00a0progress and\u00a0we have a\u00a0few candidates. Most of\u00a0them have written a\u00a0manifesto. For some of\u00a0them this is one of\u00a0the\u00a0few mails they sent to the\u00a0public mailing lists recently. For one of\u00a0them this is the\u00a0only one<\/em>. Do we want to elect people who do not participate actively in\u00a0the\u00a0Community? Does such election even make sense?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gentoo is\u00a0an\u00a0open, free community. While the\u00a0Developer Community is not really open (joining consumes a\u00a0lot of\u00a0time), the\u00a0discussion media were always open to non-developer comments and\u00a0ideas. Most of\u00a0the\u00a0people working on\u00a0Gentoo are volunteers, doing all the\u00a0work in\u00a0their free time or\u00a0between other tasks.<\/p>\n

While we have formal rules, leaders and\u00a0projects, all of\u00a0them have very limited power. The\u00a0rules pretty much boil down to being \u00abdo not\u00bbs. You can try to\u00a0convince developer to follow your vision but\u00a0you can’t force him to. If\u00a0you try too hard, the\u00a0best you can get is\u00a0losing a\u00a0valuable contributor. And\u00a0I’m not talking about the\u00a0extremes like rage quits; the\u00a0person will simply no\u00a0longer be interested in\u00a0working on\u00a0a\u00a0particular project.<\/p>\n

Most of\u00a0the\u00a0mailing list (and\u00a0bug) discussions are about that. Finding possible solutions, discussing their technical merits and\u00a0finding an\u00a0agreement. It is not enough to choose a\u00a0solution which is considered best by\u00a0a\u00a0majority or\u00a0a\u00a0team. It is about agreeing on a\u00a0solution that is good and\u00a0that comes with\u00a0people willing to work on it. Otherwise, you end up with no\u00a0solution because what has been chosen is not\u00a0being implemented.<\/p>\n

Consider the\u00a0late games team policy thread<\/a>. The\u00a0games team and\u00a0their supporter believes their solutions to have technical merit. Without getting into\u00a0debating this, we can easily see the\u00a0effects. The\u00a0team is barely getting any contributions, mostly thanks to a\u00a0few (three?) persistent out-of-team developers that are willing to overcome all the\u00a0difficulties. And\u00a0even those contributors support the\u00a0idea of\u00a0abolishing the\u00a0current policy.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the\u00a0purpose of\u00a0all the\u00a0teams, their leads and\u00a0the\u00a0Council in\u00a0all this? As I see it, teams are the\u00a0people who know the\u00a0particular area better than others, and\u00a0have valuable experience. Yet teams need to be\u00a0open to the\u00a0Community, to listen to their feedback, to provide valuable points to\u00a0the\u00a0discussion and\u00a0to guide it towards a\u00a0consensus.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0teams may need to make a\u00a0final decision if\u00a0a\u00a0mailing list discussion doesn’t end in\u00a0a\u00a0clear agreement. However, they need to weigh it carefully, to foresee the\u00a0outcome. It is not\u00a0enough to\u00a0discuss the\u00a0merits in\u00a0a\u00a0semi-open meeting, and\u00a0it is not enough to consider only the\u00a0technical aspect. The\u00a0teams need to predict how the\u00a0decision will affect the\u00a0Community, how it will affect the\u00a0users and\u00a0the\u00a0contributors.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Council is not very different from those teams, albeit more formal in\u00a0its proceedings. Likewise, it needs to listen to\u00a0the\u00a0Community, especially if\u00a0it is called specifically to revise a\u00a0team’s decision (or\u00a0lack of action).<\/p>\n

Now, how could the\u00a0Council determine what’s best for\u00a0Gentoo without actively participating in\u00a0the\u00a0proceedings of\u00a0the\u00a0Community? Non-active candidates, do you expect to start participating after being elected? Or\u00a0do\u00a0you think that grepping through the\u00a0threads five minutes before the\u00a0meeting is enough?<\/p>\n

Well, I hope that the\u00a0next Council will be up to the\u00a0task. That it will listen to the\u00a0Community and\u00a0weigh their decisions carefully. That it will breed action and support ideas backed by\u00a0technical merits and\u00a0willing people, rather than decisions that discourage further contribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0new Council election is in\u00a0progress and\u00a0we have a\u00a0few candidates. Most of\u00a0them have written a\u00a0manifesto. For some of\u00a0them this is one of\u00a0the\u00a0few mails they sent to the\u00a0public mailing lists recently. For one of\u00a0them this is the\u00a0only one. Do we want to elect people who do not participate actively in\u00a0the\u00a0Community? Does such election even make sense?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}